Opening Word or Excell results in POP or BOING sound, normal.dot

This tip was submitted by user Fred Brack, who was having a problem with POP or BOING when he started Word. It turned out to be an add-in, but it wasn't easy to figure out which one. The add-in was modifying normal.dot when it loaded, and did some messing around with the clipboard, either clearing it or updating it. Lots of times add-ins will use the clipboard to copy/paste a toolbar button, but this one did something else - it's unclear as to what it's doing with the clipboard. But here's Fred's excellent report on how he tracked it down:

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1. The key to solving this problem was my recollection, as I may or may not have mentioned to you, that I recently noticed that every time I closed Word, it was saving normal.dot, even if I didn't make any modifications to the file being edited. Annoying, curious, but not serious enough of a problem to investigate previously. But I decided to investigate this problem last night.

2. I Googled "normal.dot." Tons of entries. A corrupted normal.dot can cause all sorts of problems, so I followed some standard techniques for debugging as if that was my problem.

3. The first recommended step is to start word from the command line with the /a" switch. This disables the loading of all add-ins. No boing, no saving of normal.dot. That pretty much confirmed the problem was with an add-in of sorts. (Of all the steps here, this is the key one for you to remember, as it may help point the user to confirmation of an add-in problem!)

4. I tried lots of other general steps recommended for more serious problems to no avail.

5. Then I read the key: if an add-in modifies Word DURING EACH STARTUP to add a menu item, Word thinks the user made a mod to normal.dot, so it saves it.

6. So I started looking through the menus for something that didn't look "regular." Bingo: File, Send To, Bluetooth. I had added a DLink USB Bluetooth adapter a couple of months ago. I searched Add/Remove Programs for any DLink entries. None. But I did find a name I recognized as something which showed up on a menu associated with Bluetooth: WIDComm.